BIG F$%*ING GUN!

Working on the Judge Dredd sample script at the moment... things are going well so far. Not much else to report - I'm chained to the drawing board... occasionally I venture outside and squint up at the sun, then quickly scurry back to my dungeon with my pencils and pens. It's the only way to live.

More Brum!

Here's a look at a couple of my finished pages:

Brum!

Back from the Birmingham Comics Show - and great fun it was too. It's been over 10 years since I went to one of these things, and it was great to see some familiar faces, and meet many new ones.

Matt Smith from 2000AD seemed to like my work, and is going to send me a sample script to work from, so that's going to be priority number 1 when I get it! I managed to show my portfolio to lots of artists, to get their opinions and valuable advice... PJ Holden was, as ever, a wealth of knowledge! That guy really knows his stuff and was happy to spend time with Sharon and myself, pointing out ways to improve my work.

The Rebellion 2000AD stand:


Here's me with PJ - look how pleased he is to see me!


PJ drawing a sketch of Mean Machine for a fan:


Mike Mignola was great, and made my day when he looked at my portfolio and said he would assume I was already working in comics - that put a big grin on my face. I've been a huge fan of his stuff for many years - his artwork and now his writing.

Meeting Mike Mignola:


Mike again, sketching on Sunday morning:

Another highlight for me was meeting the legend Mick McMahon - I was a major fan of his Dredd stuff back in the 70's and 80's, so to have his advice was fantastic.

Mick Mcmahon, who is obviously thrilled to meet me:

I have to give a special mention also to Rufus Dayglo, who sat down with me and gave a great crit of my work - he has real passion and enthusiasm for comic art and was a pleasure to talk to, as well as writer/editor Tony Lee, who said I should get myself down to the Bristol con next year. Duncan Fegredo was also a star! He was happy to chat for ages, giving me great advice and showing us his portfolio of Hellboy: Darkness Calls pages, which were friggin' fantastic.

AAARGHH!

Making a few changes to my Dredd pages today, and redrawing a few panels, on the advice of all-round top geezer PJ Holden. I'm also learning a lot more about tweaking and cleaning up my artwork in Photoshop - PJ sometimes recommends I flip a panel here and there, to help with the storytelling... and of course, he's always right.

BLAM, BLAM!

The carnage continues!

Work is going pretty well - the Birmingham con is less than 3 weeks away, so I'm hoping to find time to do a few more pages before then...

POW!!!

What's more fun to draw than Old Stoney Face punching a perp in the mouth? Not a lot, that's what!

Back to the Drawing Board

Well, I'm back from sunny Corfu (except it wasn't... it bloody rained twice!) and I'm back at the drawing board... did a sketch for the Easy Jet people this morning, and I'm working on a few more Dredd pages in preparation for the Birmingham Comic Show, which is just under a month away... so I'll post a couple more pages when they're done.

Pencils...

Well here's a look at the latest page, in pencils and then inks. I'm redrawing 4 pages or so of a strip originally crafted by the great Cam Kennedy:

UFC!!!!

Well, this has NOTHING to do with comics, but it is VERY cool... if you've never heard of the UFC, this will mean absolutely nothing to you:

I went shopping this morning with my girlfriend in the Trafford Centre, Manchester. I was in HMV looking at DVDs, and I saw this guy who was the spitting image of Rampage Jackson (who is very famous in the USA - he's the UFC Light-Heavyweight Champion of the world!) standing in line to buy something! I was thinking, there's no way that's him... then I turned round, and Michael Bisping (British UFC fighter) is stood next to me! He said "haha, bet you thought there was no way that could be him!" I was amazed, both these guys out shopping and I bumped into them. They were both really cool, very funny, and their friend took a couple of pics on my phone for me. They're both fighting at UFC 75 next week, at Wembley Arena.

So anyway, here's a couple of pics of me looking like a dork next to two of the UFC's top fighters!

Hot Comic Action!

Whelp, my blog starts here...

I'm going to chronical my efforts to become a Pro comic artist in this blog! The road will be long, hard and filled with thrills and spills... and long boring hours sat at the drawing board. My first target is going to be 2000 AD - the galaxy's greatest comic. I've been a major Judge Dredd fan since I was a nipper, and to draw Old Stoney face would be a dream come true, so I've begun work on my Dredd sample pages.

First attempt will be to show the 2000AD editor Matt Smith my work at the 2007 Birmingham Comic Show (Oct 13th I think it is), so I'm working on a (hopefully strong) portfolio for this event. My trusty sidekick, the beautiful Sharon will be accompanying me on this epic quest... this will be her first comic con, so I'm going to have to prepare her for the multitude of fanboys who will gawp at her, excited by the prospect of an actual real girl in their midst. Should be fun!

So here are a couple of pages from my portfolio... I may colour a few as well, if I have time - but I'm mainly looking at b/w stuff for now: